Russia ‘practically in a state of war against Europe’ :Vladimir Putin talks as Kiev’s ships attacked :Putin’s Trump Card : Winter Is Coming

Russian President Vladimir Putin called on Sunday for immediate talks on the “statehood” of southern and eastern Ukraine, although his spokesman said this did not mean Moscow now endorsed rebel calls for independence for territory they have seized.

The Kremlin leader’s remarks, two days after a public appearance in which he compared the Kiev government with Nazis and warned the West not to “mess with us”, came as Europe and the United States prepared possible further sanctions to halt what they say is direct Russian military involvement in the war in Ukraine.

Germany aired suspicions that Moscow might be trying to create a land corridor to supply Crimea, which it annexed from Ukraine in March, while the four-month conflict moved onto the sea for the first time on Sunday. The separatists said they had fired on a Ukrainian vessel in the Azov Sea using land-based artillery, and a military spokesman in Kiev said a rescue operation was under way.

“We must strive toward implementing the plan we agreed upon,” Mr Putin said. “We must immediately commence substantive talks and not only on technical issues, but also on the political organisation of society and the statehood status of south-east Ukraine in order to serve the interests of people living there.”

Russia ‘practically in a state of war against Europe’ over Ukraine, EU leaders warn :

Russia is “practically in a state of war against Europe,” with the crisis in Ukraine rapidly approaching “the point of no return,” EU leaders warned Saturday night.

At a summit in Brussels, they met to discuss toughened economic sanctions on Moscow, specifically targeting Russia’s finances, oligarchs linked to Vladimir Putin and the country’s vast mineral wealth.

Dalia Grybauskaite, Lithuania’s president and a staunch critic of Mr. Putin, called on the EU to get serious as Russia’s war in the Ukraine menaced peace in Europe for the first time in decades.

“Russia is in a state of war against Ukraine, and that is against a country which wants to be part of Europe. Russia is practically in a state of war against Europe,” she said.

Jose Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president, said that the EU was prepared for new sanctions and pleaded with the Russian president to step back from the brink of outright war with Ukraine.

“We are in a very serious – I would say dramatic – situation. We may see a situation where we reach the point of no return. If the escalation of the conflict continues, this point of no return can come,” he said after a meeting with Petro Poroshenko, Ukraine’s president.

As Putin pushes Ukraine to bend to his will and allow greater independence to Russian-backed separatists in the country’s southeast, the Russian president holds a trump card: Winter is coming.

“I think that nobody thinks of [winter] anymore, except Russia,” Putin said on Sunday, according to The New York Times. “There are ways of helping resolve the issue. First, to immediately stop hostilities and start restoring the necessary infrastructure. To start replenishing reserves, conducting the necessary repair operations and preparing for the cold season.”

Geysar Gurbanov, a Rotary international world peace fellow currently at Harvard, recently explained the leverage that Putin has over Ukraine as the temperature drops.